


Deliverance

by titC



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Happy Ending tho, joking, no one cries but everybody dies, spot the references game, well..., yet another ridiculous angst-fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:52:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer in a game of chicken with fate.<br/>Yes, you've guessed it: yet another light and bubbly story.<br/>But I promise it gets better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deliverance

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, you have to write lots and lots of long, long fics to prevent me from writing more of this stuff. Help me, please. Have mercy on me and on the characters...  
> Don't forget to play the references game!

“Lucifer. Lucifer, we have to talk.”

“Do we?”

“We do. Maze told me – ”

“Look, brother, I'm sorry, gotta go, duty calls, give me a ring, okay?” He half-ran to the car and opened the door, but Amenadiel blocked him. “I can't go pick up the twins if I can't get in the car. Beatrice would kill me.”

“That's kind of the problem, Luci.”

“Easy then. Budge over.”

“Not that. The fact that she could kill you. That anyone could.”

Lucifer closed the car door. “Ah. You've noticed.”

“Noticed? I thought those gray hairs were just for show!”

“They're _distinguished_ , brother mine. Not that you'd know.”

“What I know is that you're growing old. You're more... human. Mortal, maybe. You have to leave before it's too late! Maze said you don't go flying anymore. Do you even still have your wings?”

“Not that human, if I can still talk to you when you slow time down. Happy with your little test?”

“No. No, I'm not.” Amenadiel looked grim. “I think I can understand, but I wish you'd reconsider. Please.” He grabbed his brother's shoulders. “Does Chloe know?”

Lucifer shook his hands off angrily. “Leave her out of his.” He shoved his brother away from the car and got in. “I'll see you around.”

As he put the car in reverse before leaving the driveway, Amenadiel yelled, “but how long will you be around?”

 

Humans. Humans had such short lifespans; a few good earth years, then they grew old and died. Falling for a human was stupid enough, Amenadiel mused; but becoming one? Choosing death? Never mind the how, the why already was unfathomable. Maze was furious. When she'd told him how Lucifer squinted at newspapers, how he winced sometimes when he lifted one of the kids up – she'd looked ready to kill him just to spare herself the heartache of seeing her boss, her friend, her lord and business partner slide down into senescence and death. Death... What kind of death could it be?

What happened to an archangel turned devil turned human when they died? Would he go back to hell, be the ruler of the underworld again? Could he? Would he be judged according to the life he'd led? Could he go to heaven? Reincarnate?

 

As he was trying to wrap his mind around it all, Chloe arrived in her own car with the twins in the backseat.

“Hi, Amenadiel. Were you waiting for Lucifer?”

“Well, I... no, I thought I'd pay you a visit. Haven't seen the little monsters in a while, you know?”

Two little kids shot out of the car and into his legs. “Uncle Men!”

“Hello there, Sam, Ash.”

“Go on, go inside, shoo! We're just behind you.” Chloe redid her messy bun, a few graying locks escaping it as soon as she'd loosely tied her hair. “What's the problem? You seem worried.”

“I just saw Lucifer leave for... I thought he was picking them up. Did you tell him you were?”

“Well, yes, he told me he had a business meeting this afternoon.” She turned to face him. “Something's on your mind. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Er, well. Let's first try and see what your grandkids are up to before they break something.”

Chloe snickered as they entered the house. Sameen was certainly prone to destruction when left to her own devices, as the brand new window panes at her parents' could attest.

 

Lucifer got back home in the evening to a much emptier house. He dropped his jacket on his spluttering brother's head, and a kiss on Chloe's cheek.

“What are you doing with that oaf, darling?” He glared at Amenadiel. “Have you been here all afternoon?”

“Well, just when you'd left for your _business meeting_ , Chloe and the little hellions arrived. I've been invited for dinner.”

Lucifer grimaced at his brother's look, smug and reproachful at the same time. “Seems I missed Beatrice and Farrokh. I'd rather have missed you.”

“Boys. Lucifer, do you want us to help for dinner?”

“Nope, you'd only disturb my culinary genius.” He moved to the open kitchen and started humming something as he got ingredients out.

He never saw his brother root in his pocket and check his phone. Chloe did, and grimly nodded at Amenadiel.

 

While Lucifer was having a smoke outside on the porch, Chloe and Amenadiel had remained inside, pretexting cleanup. He hadn't taken his usual cognac with him, and they'd shared a worried glance when he'd nonchalantly waved away the bottle she'd got out for him.

“What did you see on that phone?” She was putting the plates in the dishwasher, a neat row of porcelain.

“He just had 'meeting' on his calendar. But he's called a hospital several times. I'll check it out,” he whispered back.

“I can help.” The fragile wine glasses, a long ago present from Lucifer, she carefully set in the sink.

“He'd notice. He won't pay as much attention if it's me and Maze digging around.” Amenadiel finished wiping the table clean, and tried a smile. “I'm just as invested as you are in this. I can't imagine him being... not here. Not after so long. You just distract him from what we'll be doing, and try and see if you can get some information from him.”

Muffled coughs floated through the open window, and Amenadiel started to wonder if he could keep his brother in slowed, borrowed time and for how long; away from this deadly, human world and... seeing Chloe's troubled expression, he remembered why he couldn't.

 

The next day, he got a quick phone call from Chloe. Her embarrassed, slightly formal tone reminded him of those early days when she had questions about angels and their quirks and couldn't, or wouldn't, ask Lucifer. She'd often ended up giggling and asking about sex. He'd been so flustered then, trying not to think of sex and his brother only to end up with Maze on his mind.

“Amenadiel. Something's definitely wrong.” There might not be any giggling this time.

“What is it? Did he say something?”

“No. He... We went to bed, and we kissed goodnight, and he fell asleep.” He heard her take a deep breath. “And that's all.”

“That's... uncharacteristic, I take it.”

“You know it is. I mean, you'd expect that after so long we'd be less... enthusiastic, but he's always been... you know.”

“Enthusiastic.”

“Well. Yes. And so have I. But yesterday it wasn't even would you like to, or I know you're too tired for the athletic stuff but, or I'll make it up to you in the morning. It was just... cough, cough, kiss, sleep.”

“Damn.”

“Yes. And there's something else.”

“What?”

“He's definitely lost weight. I checked the fit of his trousers, his shirt, his jacket. They're two sizes smaller than he used to wear, and they're still slightly too big.” He thought he heard her breath catch. “I feel so stupid. I never saw anything wrong before our talk yesterday.”

“”You see him everyday, Chloe. Gradual things like that, things that are normal for your kind...”

“But he's not!”

“No, he's not. Or, he was not.”

“I'm scared, Amenadiel. And what I find the worst – _he_ doesn't seem scared.”

When she hung up, Maze sat next to him and wound her arm around his. “This is bad, isn't it?”

He only kissed her hand.

 

A week later, he was no closer to an answer. He knew Lucifer had done some tests in a hospital renowned among the rich and famous for its discretion, Chloe had confirmed he'd mostly stopped drinking although he was still smoking a lot. Amenadiel had even flown up to try and get some answers, but all his siblings had urgent business to deal with when he'd tried to talk about it and their father was mysteriously unavailable.

They needed to confront Lucifer.

 

They waited for a weekend when Beatrice, Farrokh and their twins would be away. They didn't want any of them ending up in the middle of what promised to be a very tense conversation given Lucifer's stubbornness to ignore the problem and Chloe's strong will to have answers. That, plus Maze's anger and their brotherly rivalry that had never really abated even if it was more good-natured than before... Better to avoid them barging on such a scene.

If what he feared was, in fact, true, Beatrice and the twins would be devastated. And Chloe... she may be the strongest of them all, he thought as he watched Maze pace in the sitting room, but he wasn't sure she'd be, for this. For him.

When the elevator doors opened on Lucifer, all eyes turned on him. Maze slipped behind him to block any attempt at an exit, and herded him to the sofa. He looked wistfully at the piano on his way, running a hand on the lacquered, shiny top. He may not live here full-time anymore, but that piano had seen too much of his life here on earth not to be a cherished possession. He hadn't seen him play in a good long while though, Amenadiel realized.

“So this is an intervention, eh?” He straightened his cuffs and sat on the sofa, his hand finding Chloe's. “You've been snooping around. Don't deny it, I know. Didn't find the answers you were looking for, right?” He leaned back. “You have questions. Shoot,” he said with a glance and a smile at Chloe.

She quirked a corner of her mouth, a sad little half-smile. “You don't play much anymore, do you?” So she'd noticed too.

“Well, everything gets boring after a while.” He turned to face her. “Everything except you, of course, my love.” He ran his fingers through her hair. They were stiffer than they'd been, Amenadiel saw.

“You've got arthritis in your hands.”

Lucifer sighed. “That, too.”

“What else?” Maze looked ready to take on death itself, and if death was not available then Lucifer's stupid death wish would do.

“Bits and pieces. Cogs and gears. The usual.”

“Is it... is it my fault? Because I used to make you vulnerable?”

“No! Don't think that. But it's my choice, Chloe. My cowardice. I didn't want to live without you, I didn't know how to and I... grew older. With you. For you. It's for you, love.”

“You bastard. Do you think _I_ want to lose you?”

“I am fine so far. Mostly.”

“You were _perfectly_ fine until last year. What changed?”

Maze breathed in sharply. “ Doctor Linda.”

In the silence that settled around them, they could hear the sounds of the city outside through the windows, wide open to let the evening breeze sigh around them and make the curtains flutter softly. Linda had been institutionalized the year before. A degenerative disease had claimed her body, then her mind.

Lucifer had refused to go see her. She was still there, alive only in the technical meaning of the word; an empty, withered husk of the vibrant, smart, beautiful woman she'd been. A shell hooked up to machines breathing for her, eating for her, living for her. A dead woman alive only because plastic tubes ran in and out of her, filling her and emptying her again and again, day and night. They'd had to struggle to stop Lucifer from killing her brother who'd insisted she be kept not-dead, even though it went against her spoken wishes. It was the last time they'd seen his eyes red and burning.

So he hadn't wanted to see it happening to Chloe, to Beatrice; and now... now, it was happening to him. Amenadiel shook his head. His brother had always been an arrogant bleeding heart; butting heads with father about all he'd claimed was unfair as if he could be god himself. Even after he'd been cast out, he'd tried to defend Eve, to prevent the flood. It had never worked, of course.

“Did you ask our father to make you mortal?” And were you heard, he added silently. It would have been a first, their father granting him something with no ulterior motive. Or maybe there was one. Who was he to know?

“I didn't ask anything. It happened. I'm glad.”

He winced, and Amenadiel saw Chloe was squeezing his wrist and digging her nails in his flesh. “I. Am not.”

“So what is going to happen?” Maze asked.

“We'll grow old and die.” He smiled his Chloe smile, eyes soft and happy; but with more crinkles at the corners than there used to be. His skin was thinner, like Chloe's. “That's all. Perfectly normal.”

“For humans.”

“Yes.”

“And what about after?”

“After?”

“Where will you go? What about hell?” Maze stood up. “What about me?”

“You will be free of your vow to me.” He grinned at her and lit a cigarette, and Amenadiel took it from his fingers and crushed it when he started coughing and wheezing.

Maze threw her hands up with a groan and stalked to the balcony.

“How long, Lucifer?” Chloe's low, soft voice brought Amenadiel's thoughts back inside. “At this rate...”

“Not very long. I'm sorry.”

Soon, the lord of hell would cease to be, whatever that meant; and Chloe's heart would break, and he would lose a brother he thought he'd always have, even when they'd been at odds. And Maze...

He stood up. “I think we'll leave you be, then. If I learn anything...” Lucifer shrugged and smiled, insolent and brazen as ever. Maze came back inside and they went down to the club level. It had changed many times through the years, but it had always remained a popular club. The piano had disappeared, though. Amenadiel had thought it was because he was spending more and more time with Chloe as _she_ grew older. Hah.

 

“What now?” Maze said as they walked into the street.

“I don't know. Maybe it's for the best, though.”

She whipped her head around to glare at him. “The best?”

“Hear me out. If he hadn't... changed, can you imagine his reaction to Chloe's death?”

“Don't tell me your father has a plan. If there's one, so far it sucks.” She slammed the car door shut.

“He may have one.”

“Does it involve her mourning him ever after, never seeing him again once he's turned to ash even when she's stuck up there; instead of him moping down here for the rest of all time? And what about Trixie and the twins?” Amenadiel always drove very carefully, and it infuriated Maze at times. He could see frustration bubbling inside her.

“I wish we could still talk with Linda. She always was insightful.”

“He took it hard.”

“He did.” After a few quiet miles, when they'd almost reached his cabin by the sea, he added: “there's one other person I'd like to talk to. He might have some ideas.”

“Who?”

Amenadiel looked up for an instant.

“Father Frank?”

“Father Frank.”

 

Up there in heaven, a priest was waiting for Amenadiel.

“Frank, still working on that new song?”

“Yes, I am. I haven't forgotten my goal; I swear I'll make Lucifer jealous.” He laughed his warm, deep laugh. “One day, he'll be sitting right here where you are, and I'll play that song, and he'll have to admit I'm the better player.”

“Lucifer will never come up here, Frank.”

“That's what you think. I have more faith than you, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have faith in your brother, that he'll find a way back here. I have faith in your father, our father, that he has a plan that we can't see. It will all work out, I'm sure.” His deft fingers were running over the keys, although not depressing them.

“Lucifer is running out of time. I don't know what will happen, then.”

“No one does. Maybe even god doesn't.”

“But – ”

Father Frank smiled. “He now mostly lets us humans make our own mistakes, doesn't he? And hopefully learn from them?”

“I... I guess so, yes. But...”

“He forgave you for your own sins and errors, didn't he?”

“I... yes. Father is merciful.”

“Then have faith, angel. He has a plan.” Father Frank looked down at the piano keys. “I'd ask you to say hello from me, but I think he wouldn't take it too well. I'm looking forward to saying it to his face one day.”

 

When they gathered on the beach that night, the air was warm and the ocean quiet in its slow, inexorable ebb and flow, whispering up and down the soft sand. Lucifer had leaned on Beatrice for the short walk to his favorite lounger, his almost entirely white hair fluttering in the salty breeze and almost too bright in the dark. Chloe had held his hand in hers, both of them watching the sky as the stars shone their cold light down on them.

Ash and Sam were speaking in hushed voices and Farrokh, who'd never known what Lucifer was – had been – and who'd never really warmed to his strange ways, stayed a little behind their small group out of respect for his family. Grieving, he could understand. Amenadiel appreciated his discretion, and squeezed his shoulder as he walked past him to join Maze, sitting at his brother's feet and watching the waves.

“We're lucky,” he heard Lucifer murmur to Chloe.

“Are we?”

“I'm spared many indignities, and you're spared witnessing them.” The sound of hair against fabric. “But I'm sorry I'm leaving you.”

“I'll probably join you in not too long, though.”

Lucifer didn't say anything for a long while, his breathing slow and a bit wheezing. Amenadiel thought he was avoiding mentioning his doubts on what his afterlife would be. They'd never told him she knew about them. They'd never told him about the aneurysm in her brain they'd found in a routine exam, either.

As the stars were fading out little by little, Ash and Sam started humming a song. It was the last one Lucifer had taught them, willing his stiffening fingers to run over the piano keys to accompany them and ignoring his short breath. Amenadiel looked back when Farrokh joined the twins with his own low voice. He saw Chloe's head on his brother's shoulder, and Lucifer's cheek resting on her hair.

“Promise me you'll make sure Sameen and Hashem each get a piano, yes?” He smiled at Beatrice. “Your little humans will have the devil's luck, I swear.”

She nodded, and hummed along the song, covering Lucifer's increasingly labored breaths.

The lion sleeps tonight, Amenadiel mouthed along. The lion sleeps tonight.

 

Lucifer died when both children were asleep, a little after Venus appeared in the sky. “You showy bastard,” Maze said in a strangled voice.

 

A flock of birds flew over them before banking and getting closer. Soon, a group of winged people landed on the sand. From the ocean, disfigured creatures emerged and faced the angels.

“We want to bring our brother back to our father,” they said.

“We want to bring our master back where he belongs,” they answered.

But Lucifer's body turned to ash as the morning star faded in the growing sunlight, dissolving in the cool air and only leaving a white feather in Chloe's hand where his heart had been.

There was no fight, not even angry staring. A hush fell on them all. They watched the children sleep peacefully, one dressed in black and white, the other in red and black. Farrokh shivered.

They left.

Amenadiel remained on the beach with Maze and the humans, feeling so much closer to them than his siblings. Lucifer, look what you've done to us, he thought. It's all your fault, as always. How I hate you. How I miss you, already.

 

“I've always wondered,” Farrokh said, eyes lost into the changing colors of the early morning. “Was Lucifer his actual name or a sort of stage name?”

“God-given, I'm afraid,” Chloe answered. She giggled wetly.

“As in...”

“He had quit. But yes.”

“God...”

“Don't mention him,” they all chorused.

Amenadiel smiled at Farrokh's wide eyes. “We should get your little ones in bed,” he said standing up.

 

They left Chloe and Beatrice on the beach, hugging their knees and watching the sky and listening to the seagulls high above.

 

Sameen woke up as Amenadiel was tucking her up. “Is Lucifer with the angels now?” she mumbled.

He closed the heavy curtains to shut the growing light out. “I'm sure he is. Watching over you two.”

Her eyes flashed red when she closed them and fell back into sleep. Amenadiel felt his heart drop down to the underworld.

 

They buried Chloe six months later on a rainy fall day, two weeks after Linda passed away into peace, at long last.

 

For the twins' 15th birthday and to celebrate the new year, on a cool winter day, Maze and Amenadiel came back to Los Angeles at Beatrice's urging. They'd chosen earth over heaven and hell, but some places were still a little too painful to live in, and they'd settled in Salt Lake City. Maze enjoyed scandalizing Mormons and debauching them in her club, and Amenadiel had fun with theological debates and cooking contests.

Ten years after Lucifer's passing... somewhere, something was brewing. He could feel it. He'd never forgotten Sameen's ember eyes.

He and Maze parked in front of Chloe's old house by the sea, where Farrokh and Beatrice now lived. He'd lit candles here and there around the house, the flames a reminder of his family's faith. When they'd talked on the phone, he'd said they'd celebrate the New Year, Hashem and Sameen's birthday, and Maidyarem Gahanbar at the same time. Amenadiel approved of Farrokh's insistence on keeping his Parsi traditions and the old, old religion alive. It had been no small source of conflict with Beatrice's father who'd kept bad memories of Catholic schools, but Chloe had brokered peace between them all. Dan had never known the conversations she'd had with Lucifer and Amenadiel, of course.

The twins were in the music room, Ash practicing a religious piece by Bach – the order and mathematical precision had always appealed to him, and wouldn't Lucifer have been horrified? – and Sam reading something on her tablet about a Luciano Berio. Probably something inaudible, Amenadiel thought. She was into all kinds of weird music. Sam mock-wrestled Maze, Ash hugged him, and they all went outside to catch up with their lives, surrounded by candles and the sound of the waves.

 

On the night of the new year, they'd gathered on the beach to light a small fire and wait for midnight with warm drinks and presents to exchange. No one paid attention to the sky or the ocean, and when they realized they were surrounded, it was too late. Amenadiel remembered the early morning when Lucifer had died and angels and demons had watched a little too closely at Sameen and Hashem, asleep and peaceful.

The humans seemed as if paralyzed, eyes wide and hands clutching at hands. He saw Ash grasp something around his neck and his lips moving as if reciting something; Sam was palming a knife left next to her plate.

A disfigured, tall figure came forward. “Mazikeen.”

“Lord Beelzebub,” she answered.

“Amenadiel.”

“Gabriel.”

“We have come to get our new ruler of hell,” Beelzebub said.

“And get back those who deserted.”

“It was not desertion, Gabriel.” He felt Maze against his back, probably already with her knives in hand.

“Wasn't it? You haven't come back in a while, brother. You've been lying with the enemy, living close to humans. That is not our purpose.”

“And you, demon, have not protected our lord as you had vowed to do.”

“What are you hoping to do here?” Hashem stood up, his hair in disarray from the rising ocean breeze. “Who are you hoping to kidnap?”

Gabriel bowed his head. “You are the one they call Asha. You shall have pride of place among us, Asha.” Asha? Farrokh mouthed.

“What the hell?” Sam's eyes flashed crimson, and Amenadiel saw Beatrice's eyes widen not so much in fear as in recognition as her daughter stood up too, knife in hand and red scarf fluttering behind her.

“Hell is your realm, lady. We shall be your subjects.”

The wind coming from the ocean stirred the sand in a cloud, a few feet away from them. A voice rang out, familiar and amused. “I wish you'd all follow my example, really. Even died for the cause and everything. I guess it's a family trait.” The sand formed a long oval shape, that slowly turned into a body. A man... almost.

“Lucifer!” In the hush that had fell over all of them, hosts of angels and hordes of demons and a small family on a little beach by the ocean, Beatrice jumped to her feet and launched herself at him like she used to more than four decades ago. But now was not yesterday, and this time he opened his arms, and also his wings, wide and bright. He looked so young again, happy and smiling. He even twirled her a little. She giggled like the girl she'd been, her dark hair flying around their heads. “You're never too old for that,” Amenadiel heard him whisper in the wind.

“Hello, Beatrice. It seems your spawn is in a spot of trouble by my fault, or so they say.” Holding her hand, he walked her back to the fire before going first to Sam. “You probably don't remember me very well, Sameen. My former subjects have chosen you, and for that I apologize.” He removed the knife from her hand, then turned to her brother. “Asha, as your father would tell you, is truth, right. You are cursed with a blessing, one could say.”

Lucifer threw the knife at Beelzebub's feet. “Leave them be. You can be lord of hell if you so choose. You can leave hell, too. And you, Gabriel.” He shook his wings as he shifted his stance to face the archangel. “Do you need children to do your bidding? Human children? Don't you have better things to do?” Feathers rustled and there was the sound of claws against metal, but no one else said anything.

At last, he looked at Maze and Amenadiel. She walked to him and punched him, and he staggered and grabbed her by the waist and hugged her fiercely as she pounded his face, his sides, his back. “I missed you too, Maze. You know you're my favorite, right?”

“Brother. What...?”

“Oh, Amenadiel. I'm so proud of you and my little demon, you know?” He oofed at a fist in his gut – she hadn't liked the 'little' thing, apparently.

“Are you... alive again?” He peered at his eyes. “Fully angelic for good? Forgiven?”

“Oh, much better than that, brother mine.” Lucifer flashed red eyes and sharp teeth for a second and the smaller angels yelped, then he let his wings glow a bit and some demons took a step back.

“What are you? One of us? One of them?”

“I am no one's. I am... a free agent, if you will. As you and Maze are becoming, even if you won't admit it. As all of you,” he said to them all, “could be. We can all seize freedom, should we want it, as long as we do not interfere with mankind's choices either. Don't you want it? Not being stuck to one boring activity, one life, one place? The universe is so big.” His eyes fell on Beatrice. “I have your mother to thank for that. For helping me get that freedom I'd so yearned for, fallen for, lost everything for.” He paused. “She says hi, by the way.”

“She's... she's with you?”

“She can't come back here, little human. Your afterlife is a one-way ticket, but you'll see her again. She's looking over you all. She saw, she sent me, and here I am.” He spread out his arms, his wings still glowing softly, casting light over the many angels and demons staring silently at him.

Freedom, they were thinking. Freedom? Freedom to choose to go on doing what I've been doing, freedom to try something else. Freedom to fail or succeed. Amenadiel realized he'd made his choice, thrown in his lot on this earth here, with these humans. They'd grown on him, slowly but inexorably – their quirks and weirdness and imperfections. He felt Maze entwine her fingers with his, and they watched demons and angels look around, a bit dazed, a bit lost. Some started going to the other side, exchanging a few words. Some even hugged, cried – long-lost siblings with the freedom to reunite at long last.

 

Seeing this, Amenadiel's heart squeezed and expanded at the same time. And here was Lucifer, so bright and happy, giving the ultimate finger to their father – showing the way to all of them, from heaven to hell to freedom by way of want and rage and resentment, and then love and death. Chloe would forever remain away from earth, but he'd won her back still.

 

Maybe it was all god's plan, as Father Frank had said. And maybe Lucifer had indeed been the strongest and brightest and bravest of his children, in his own way. After all, he had always been the first.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, I'm very, _very_ unsure about this one...  
>  If you can spot what's behind the names of the OCs, tell me - I'll write a happy story with no one dying in it, I swear.


End file.
